RIGHT OF SELF-DEFENCE, RETALIATION AND REPRISAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW: THE ISRAELI-IRAN ARM CONFLICT AS A CASE STUDY

Abstract

The current crises in the Middle-East have given rise to a lot of actions and reactions with rising legal issues in international law. Iran attacked Israel on October 1 2024; Israel returned the ‘favour’ on the 26 October, 2024. On each occasion of such attacks, the attacker would warn his victim not to take a reprisal action less he be attacked worse than previously. It is a well-known position of law, both at the domestic and international planes, that the right of self-defence accrues when a person is being attacked by another. The right also accrues when an attack could be pre-empted. This leaves the place of ‘retaliation’ and ‘reprisal’ apparently uncertain in international law. At the international plane, the right is codified in article 51 of the United Nations (UN) Charter. It is now common between Israel and Iran to find the one attacked today will take its time to exercise its ‘right of self-defence.’ This work aimed at finding the status of retaliation or reprisal in international law with the objective of guiding the UN to condemn retaliatory and reprisal attacks or to openly legalise it in international law. It is for this reason that this work has consulted textbooks, international statutes, internet materials and case-law to find out that reprisals or retaliations in the arm conflict between Iran and Israel have been accepted by the states of the UN to be a norm and not an abnormality.